NAC Member Biography: David A. Asch
David A. Asch, M.D., M.B.A.
Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives
University of Pennsylvania
David A. Asch, M.D., M.B.A., is senior vice president of the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also the John Morgan professor of medicine, professor of healthcare management, and professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School. Dr. Asch’s research aims to improve how physicians and patients make medical choices in clinical and financial settings, including the adoption of new pharmaceuticals or medical technologies, the purchase of insurance, and personal health behaviors. His research combines elements of economic analysis with psychological theory and consumer marketing in the field now known as behavioral economics. He is the author of more than 500 published papers and has won numerous national awards for teaching, scholarship, and mentorship. Dr. Asch is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and is also a founding partner of the behavioral economics consulting firm VAL Health.
Dr. Asch created and from 2001-2012 directed the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion—the Department of Veterans Affairs’ national center to support vulnerable populations and reduce racial disparities. From 1998 to 2012, he served as executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. During the same period, the Institute created new dissemination and media programs to increase the impact and relevance of health policy scholarship and new degree programs, new executive education programs, and new pipeline programs to advance the careers and contributions of under-represented minority trainees.
From 2012 to 2022, he was executive director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine, a 6-hospital system with nearly 3,000 beds and more than 7,000 physicians.
Dr. Asch received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and his medical degree from Weill-Cornell Medical College. He was a resident in internal medicine and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and received his MBA in healthcare management and decision sciences from the Wharton School.
